“Not with her hair in her face.”
“That happens to be Lisa Murphy. You took her out during your junior year of college when you were home during the summer.”
Understanding dawned and Spence swallowed a laugh. “I take it you didn’t like her very much?”
“Not after she took me aside and told me I was a pest and that I should stay away from you. We were all at a charity horse show that day. Actually, I didn’t even know you were going to be there.”
The last page contained one of the snapshots of Spence with his grandmother that Corey had taken at the luau. They looked at it in silence for a moment. “She was very special,” Corey said softly, touching her fingertip to the elderly lady’s cheek.
“So were you,” he said quietly, as he closed the album. “Even then.”
Corey knew instinctively that the part of the evening she longed for and dreaded was about to begin. She took the coward’s way and tried to forestall the inevitable with humor and change of location. “I’m sure you didn’t think I was ‘special’ when I was hanging out of trees taking pictures of you,” she joked, walking over to the balustrade.
He walked up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. “I always thought you were special, Corey.” When she didn’t reply, he said, “Would you be surprised if I told you I have a picture of you?”
“Was it one of the ones I used to stick in your wallet when you weren’t looking?”
An instant ago he was about to kiss her, and he ended up burying his laughing face in her hair instead. “Did you really do that?”
“No, but I considered it.”
“The picture I have of you is from the front of Beautiful Living.”
“I hope you found enough room for it somewhere,” she joked. “It’s only an inch tall.”
He brushed his lips over her temple, his voice a tender murmur. “I want a larger photograph that shows the way you glow in the moonlight when you’re in my arms.”
Corey tried not to let what he was saying or doing affect her, but warmth was already spreading through her entire body, and when he slid his arm around her waist and drew her against his full length, she felt an ache of longing begin to build. “I’m insane about you,” he whispered.
“Spence,” she pleaded softly, “don’t do this to me.” But it was too late, he was already turning her in his arms, and when his mouth opened over hers, insistent and hungry, Corey gave herself up to the torrid kiss, surrendered to the turbulence that followed in the wake of male hands that caressed her breasts and slid down her spine, forcing her into vibrant contact with his arousal. When he finally lifted his mouth from her, Corey felt seared by the kiss and branded with his body.
“Stay for a few days,” he whispered, rubbing his jaw against her hair.
A few days… She deserved a few sweet days to remember and cherish. And then regret. “I – I have to work fo a living – a schedule –“
He shoved his hands through the sides of her hair and turned her face up to his. “Put me on your schedule. I have work for you.”
She thought he was joking about it being work, and she leaned her forehead against his chest. She was going to stay with him. God help her, she was going to do it. “What you’re suggesting is not work,” she said, her voice trembling with fear and love.
Spence sensed that she was wavering, and he pressed the advantage he’d gained before she could change her mind. “I’m serious,” he said, using the only method he’d been able to think of all day that might make her agree to stay. “I’ve been putting together notes for a book on this house and several others built at the same time. I need photographs to accompany the text, and you could-“
She shoved him away so abruptly that he almost lost his balance. “So that’s what this whole seduction routine had been about!” She wrapped her arms around her middle and backed away, her voice shaking with tears and fury. “You wanted something!” He reached for her, but she jerked free and backed away. “Get out of here.”
“Listen to me!” Spence caught her just inside the open doors. “I love you!”
“If you want me to take pictures of this place, then call the William Morris Agency in New York and talk to my agent, but first you’d better send him a blank check!”
“Corey, shut up and listen to me. I invented all that about the book. I’m in love with you.”
“You lying, conniving – Get out of here!”
She was trying so damned hard not to cry, and he knew she’d hate him more if she broke down in front of him. He dropped his arms to his sides, but he wasn’t giving up. “We’ll talk about this in the morning.”
By the time Spence reached his own room, the enormity of his mistake had hit him. Not matter what he tried to tell her in the morning, she wasn’t going to believe him. After this, there was no way he could prove to her that he had no ulterior motives and that all he wanted was her.
Furious with his blunder, he yanked off his jacket and unbuttoned his shirt while he let himself consider the one ugly possibility that had been there all along: Corey wasn’t in love with him. He knew damned well she felt something for him; it ignited the moment he touched her, but he could be mistaking that “something” for love. He was on his way to the liquor cabinet when he passed his bed and saw the note propped on his pillows.
It was a hastily written letter from Joy, telling him that she was eloping with Will Marcillo, the caterer’s son, and asking Spence to tell her mother in the morning. The rest of the letter was a desperate effort on his niece’s part to make Spence understand why a conversation she’d had with Corey earlier that day had convinced her she had to marry the man she loved. According to Joy’s disjointed explanation, Corey ha
d admitted to her that she had never loved anyone but Spence and she wanted to have his babies, but she was afraid to risk her feelings again. That, according to Joy, was exactly how she herself had felt about Will, only Joy was no longer afraid to take the risk.
Spence read the letter again, then he put it down on a table and stared at his bed, his mind whirling with Joy’s revelations, fitting them together with the things he’d discovered about Corey and then coming to a full stop at the impossible predicament he’d put himself in tonight by lying to her about his motives for wanting her to stay.
According to Joy’s note, Corey loved him. She wanted to have his babies. She was afraid to take a risk.
According to Corey, she either acted on impulse and instinct, or else she lost her courage and didn’t act at all.
Spence had inadvertently fixed it so that nothing he said would make Corey believe he wanted only her. Tomorrow a wedding was scheduled to take place, but there was no bride and no groom. He couldn’t say anything to make her believe him, but there was a possibility he might still be able to do something. He hesitated for a moment, and then he made his decision and picked up the telephone.
Judge Lattimer had just gotten home from the rehearsal dinner. He was very surprised to hear from Spence. He was more surprised when he understood why.
Fourteen
COREY WAS ALREADY SETTING UP EQUIPMENT FOR THE WEDDING shots on the lawn at seven o’clock in the morning when she was handed a note from Spence telling her to come to his study immediately. Convinced he had some new form of lie to tell her, she circumvented him by taking Mike and Kristin with her.
Anger made her steps long and fast as she walked across the lawn. She still could hardly believe he’d done what he had, merely to get free professional photographs for his damned book. On the other hand, Corey’s freelance fees were very high, and she’d lived among the wealthy long enough to know how incredibly cheap some of them were when it came to spending money on anything other than themselves. Cheap was bad enough, but deceitful and manipulative were unforgivable, and to use her as he had – to touch her and kiss her – and then to tell her he loved her. That was obscene.